Jump to conclusions much? I asked specifically about issues you have with them exercising their Second Amendment rights and you come back with an insult.
You mentioned three groups who use their First Amendment rights to advocate reprehensible acts and equate them to the First Amendment as Open Carry Texas is to the Second Amendment. You may have issues with OCT’s actions toward others or their speech, but those aren’t Second Amendment issues. So I’ll ask again, what is it about the way they exercise their Second Amendment rights that you have issues with?
For people who ask why gun owners get so vitriolic, I’d point to the end quote from the article:
“The reality is that a majority of NRA members and gun owners support the reforms we’re fighting for.”
This has become their standard line, I still haven’t seen the survey data and questions they used to come up with this, but for every gun owner I know that statement is patently untrue. if you want to know why gun owners get so upset when statements and statistics like that are thrown around please browse through:
It’s not the “I believe your opinion is wrong” attitude that bothers me, that’s to be expected in any debate. It’s the attitude that “this person’s opinion is invalid because A) they don’t own/know anything about guns or B) they own guns and must be some kind of hypocrite, and therefore they should be the LAST person to talk about how to regulate firearms.”
I agree that B is disingenuous - but with A - so many of the proposals and their proponents show a complete lack of understanding of firearms generally…it would be like proposals mandating the inclusion of a “coffee cup holder” (CD/DVD/BluDrive) on a computer or banning flame paint jobs on on cars because it makes them too fast; it is simply exasperating. Firearms are actually fairly simple mechanical objects and many of the arguments and reasoning which are purportedly behind the proposed regulations are patently bizarre and illogical.
And I say purportedly, because what drives a lot of gun owner vitriol is that the conclusion we generally reach about people who use such nonsensical arguments is that they must be:
complete idiots
only interested in banning guns (despite whatever else is actually coming out of their mouths)
Maybe assuming that the answer is 2 is giving them too much credit?
I kind of feel like it’s worth mentioning that there’s a also huge difference in knowing about something and knowing about it.
Being an expert deisel mechanic doesn’t mean somebody knows anything about overland shipping routes, traffic control engineering, or even a good driver- Even if they could be considered an expert on trucks.
Threats, assault, and spitting in faces do not constitute legitimate exercise of second amendment rights. This is not about criticizing people for exercising their second amendment rights. It is about criticizing people for threatening, assaulting, and spitting on people exercising their first amendment rights.
As a counterpoint to A, I have a feeling most gun owners are not exactly experts on gun control policy or public safety and yet they seem to feel pretty entitled to have a strong opinion about those things. A lot of gun owners don’t seem to be willing to acknowledge that there is a legitimate public safety concern when it comes to gun ownership.
If I reasoned similarly to you I’d have to conclude that these people are either:
complete idiots
only interested in murdering people with their guns
Would assuming 2 be giving them too much credit? Or would it be giving my ability to understand the motivations of other human beings too much credit?
Edit:
Not analogous to what we’re talking about here. weev isn’t driving the national conversation about “computer control” laws. Also, pretty sure weev never pulled a stunt like the assault squirt gun bit mentioned in the linked article.
You’re not getting it. MikeTheBard said that Open Carry Texas is to the Second Amendment as NAMBLA, Stormfront, and Westboro Baptist are to the First Amendment. Those latter groups use the First Amendment in pretty reprehensible ways. Since MikeTheBard specifically equates Open Carry Texas to the 2nd as those groups are to the 1st, I’m asking what about their exercise of the 2nd he thinks is analogous to those groups’ exercise of the 1st. What about their open carry does he find reprehensible? Threats, assault, and spitting are crimes, not Second Amendment issues, so they aren’t what he’s talking about, unless he meant to say something else and did so poorly. I’m trying to find out what he really meant.
You’re not getting it. This thread isn’t about people legitimately taking advantage of open carry laws. This thread is about people using harassment and intimidation against people who want changes to those laws.
Even so, @MikeTheBard has a point. If you read the linked article you will see several examples of Open Carry Texas using the open carry laws specifically to intimidate political opponents. That is very much analogous to the way that WBC, NAMBLA, and Stormfront abuse first amendment laws IMO.
I think that the reason is that she is trying to further restrict rights that are already heavily restricted. Threats and misogyny are never acceptable. However, people who support gun rights must always be vigilant to keep their rights.
The title of the post mentions “gun sanity.” I support sanity. I look at Chicago which has a crime problem, and Atlanta which also has a crime problem. One has very strict gun control and one does not, yet similar crime rates. I also look at Chicago. One zip code can have dozens of murders per year, and another zip code can have only one per year (the “crime gap”). Exact same laws in both areas, yet completely different outcomes. This tells my that the laws have little to no effect. Sanity in action.
I also look at the statistics. Out of every thousand guns, only one is used in a murder (based on back-of-the-envelope calculations involving estimates of gun ownership, population, and murder rates). My common sense tells me that passing laws making life harder for the 99.9% of honest citizens to make things harder for the 0.1% that does not follow laws anyways defies all logic, and is therefore somewhat insane.
Finally, how would this article be worded differently if the subjects were not in favor of “gun sanity” but were instead in favor of “internet sanity” – or against net neutrality. Or perhaps they were in favor of “intelligence sanity” which could be defined as supporting all NSA spying?
The article was also written by somebody who apparently knows little about guns, since they mentioned men carrying “assault weapons.” A real “assault weapon” is almost impossible to get. Importing/manufacturing new ones is illegal. The only way to get one is to purchase a grandfathered one, and they cost in the neighborhood of $20,000. I seriously doubt that 40 people had those. So much for “well-reported.”
The article also mentioned publishing the names and addresses of people who complained about perfectly legal activities to the police. Is this publishing that much different from when a newspaper published the names and addresses of all concealed-carry holders a couple of years ago. It cannot be right in one circumstance and wrong in another.
I should note that this is the same journal that published an article about the “fallacy” of concealed-carry guns being able to stop a mass shooting. That article had enough half-truths and logical fallacies that it is laughable that anybody would make that many mistakes on purpose, meaning that it must have been intended to mislead people.
I should like to point out that she is not really pro-2nd amendment. That is like saying that you are pro-1st amendment if you support being able to talk about sports or the weather, just don’t discuss politics or say bad things about the government.
I live in Colorado, where we have to live with “universal” background checks. These are REAL situations that have happened here.
Background checks are HARD to get. The BATF has taken away licenses for dealers who do such things as put “FL” instead of “Florida” or “Y” instead of “Yes.” Every time you do a transfer, there is a small but distinct possibility of making a mistake that could cost you your license. So, generally, no sale = no background check. There is no money in checks, so why take the chance.
Soldier lives with his fiance. He gets deployed overseas. He now had to get a background check on his girl EVERY MONTH or he is breaking the law. See point 1 about how hard it is to do a background check. Great way to treat a soldier.
We had some fires that destroyed a couple hundred homes a year ago. If your house goes up, you might wind up living in a hotel with your kids for a while. If you take the guns with you, they are within reach of your kids (your gun safe was destroyed in the fire). If you leave them with a friend, you are both criminals.
These ACTUALLY HAPPENED. It is not hypothetical. However, the real criminals will not decide to actually start obeying these laws, so it does almost nothing to make anybody any safer.
This is just “no true scotsman”. Your analogy is poor. It’s more like saying you are pro-1st amendment if you support being able to express any opinion you want but object to speech that directly incites violence or mayhem (shouting “fire” in a crowded theater).
It’s long been acknowledged by every court in the USA that there are legitimate restrictions to both the 1st and 2nd amendment. If we can acknowledge that one can support the 2nd amendment while also acknowledging that there should be some legitimate restrictions to its exercise that would be nice.
Invariably, when somebody does propose new regulations on guns to “make us safer” it is almost always based on wishful thinking.
Case in point. Australia made is MUCH harder to get guns. Gun murders went down to almost nothing, but stabbing and beating deaths went up to make up most of the difference. The end result was that murder went down a little, but violent crime overall (assault, sexual assault, robbery) has gone up by 40%. Yet people claim that reducing guns will reduce gun violence, as if being stabbed to death is somehow better than being shot to death. Meanwhile, in the US, violent crime and murder have gone down MORE than they have in Australia during the same period.
Another fact: The US tried an “assault weapon” ban and a ban on larger magazines for 10 years. Effect on crime? Approximately zero. Surely if we pass the ban again, it would work this time, right?
I have yet to see any support that any sort of additional regulations would make us any safer. And since this is a constitutional right, the bar should be set pretty high for making additional restrictions.
It’s also interesting to see a comparison between a few different countries. Any dramatic changes to gun laws in Wales and England in 1998? I don’t think so, but apparently policies for recording and reporting crime statistics did:
See? Wow, 37% of the country has firearms! Holy crap, we should ban it just like marijuana! That’ll fix things! Maybe we could ban violent video games, too!
The thing is, the people who own guns have multiple guns. Like, my mom and dad have weapons that are approved for concealed carry, as well as shotguns for hunting, a couple of 22 rifles for target practice, and a collection of antiques handed down to them from parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and down to the American Revolutionary War.
And I became a gun owner through inheritance; I guess when my folks kick the bucket, I’ll become a nutso gun addict by default.
It’s not Chicago. It’s waaaay downstate. Lots of crime, a statistically insignificant amount of it committed with the use of firearms.
Hell, I don’t even have any stickers on my car. I catch shit for driving a hybrid; most of it is passive-aggressive bullshit like boxing in my car with F-150s and F-250s (I’ve taken to parking as far out in lots as I can; the assholes still box me in) and all kinds of shit I won’t go into because it’ll just raise my blood pressure.
Speak for yourself. That’s my name, and it started as a masculine name; it’s the Ulster pronunciation of Sean. Once it came to the U.S., it became androgynous.
The Internet is not something that you just dump something on; it’s not a big truck. It-it-it’s a series of tubes! And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
This is exactly why I get so worked up in such threads; I agree, it’s totally wrong to threaten people in the way these women are being harassed, but…the thing is, even the driving trollies that Teapot has done on this thread often gets counted as “gun sanity” by control advocates. (‘America has a gun addiction! One gun for every man, woman, and child!’) And the thing is, if there was a direct correlation between, say, gun ownership and homicide, you’d expect the United States to have the highest murder rate. It doesn’t. If anything, it seems like there’s a correlation between income and murder.
Some people see tragedies like the ones in Colorado and Sandy Hook, and look to the government to fix the problem by restricting access to weapons for all, while others seek to ban things like violent video games. Some of the rest of us look at those tragedies, and on top of mourning the loss of those people, wonder how on Earth it took a mass murder to expose those people’s problems…and wonder how on Earth someone could be crass enough to use those tragic events to forward a political agenda.
aa[quote=“wysinwyg, post:127, topic:31452”]
As a counterpoint to A, I have a feeling most gun owners are not exactly experts on gun control policy or public safety and yet they seem to feel pretty entitled to have a strong opinion about those things. [/quote]
I can back up my point with demonstrable inconsistencies in the statements from the legislators regarding the rhetoric they use in promoting their proposals. My statement isn’t based in feelings.
Many gun banners will admit their ultimate interest in banning all guns for civilians when promoting incremental “common sense” change. I have never read of a gun owner who admitted to only being interested in murdering people. You are simply trolling me.
Public Safety is a whole different ball of wax. What is the legitimate public safety concern about guns that you feel goes unacknowledged?
OTC (and the other actors carrying out these despicable actions against gun control advocates) isn’t/aren’t driving the national conversation about gun control either. I think you are missing the point.
Implying that mine is? I can back up my point by repeating any number of fallacious or hyperbolic arguments from gun control opponents. I’m not doing that specifically because focusing only on the weakest arguments against one’s position is not particularly intellectually honest. Which was the whole point of the comment to which you are replying.
No, I’m legitimately engaging in a discussion with you. People have got to stop baselessly accusing others of “driving trollies” just for disagreeing.
My reasoning may be incorrect in some respect (at least in your opinion); that does not automatically mean I’m “driving trollies” you.
That they are an extremely effective and simple means of killing human beings and that in many jurisdictions they are easily obtained even by people who are not terribly responsible. See: the guy who shot his nephew through the head because he assumed there was no chambered round.
My impression is that they are. I certainly don’t hear many of these “responsible gun owners” that are always being contrasted with the likes of OCT admitting that there is, somewhere in the universe of possibility, a discrete set of reasonable regulations on owning and using firearms and advocating for that regime to be implemented in place of what we have. I thought that Longdon might qualify but apparently she’s no true Scotsman.
What is this point I am supposedly missing? It helps to be specific.
